ORMS jazz instructor leads Boston Pops

Friday

Feb 1, 2013 at 3:15 AMFeb 1, 2013 at 6:27 AM

By Andrea Bulfinchabulfinch@fosters.com

DURHAM — Standing backstage at the Verizon Wireless Arena watching Boston Pops conductor Keith Lockhart having just gone into the very piece, “Sleigh Ride,” he was there to conduct, Oyster River Middle School jazz band instructor, Dave Ervin, let his mind wander to what it would be like if he had to conduct the piece at Symphony Hall in Boston.

After all, the show in Manchester was the only one scheduled for the season. And being named WERZ's Music Teacher of the Year for 2012, Ervin was to be guest conductor for part of that very performance.

He had researched myriad ways to interpret the popular holiday classic by Leroy Anderson so as to have some options when he stood in a spot he never imagined — conducting the Boston Pops.

Upon loud applause from the audience, Ervin did his own rendition of “Sleigh Ride” following Lockhardt's.

“It was really super fun for me. I didn't even know about it,” he said of the contest held by local radio station 107.1 WERZ.

Ervin had only learned about his competing in the contest about two weeks before a winner was announced and said he was glad it wasn't a longer time frame that he had to deal with the anticipation.

He compared the feeling, the excitement, and the speed with which everything happened as being similar to a parent pulling their child out of school one day and announcing a trip to Disney World.

“It was wild,” he said.

Two weeks and 600 votes from a supportive community later, he stood before revered musicians.

He found out he was nominated by at least two of his students, all of whom, he said, are very proud of him for emerging as the winner.

“It was just so much fun conducting the Boston Pops,” he said.

He wasn't quite sure what to expect when he took the stage at the Verizon Wireless Arena in December. An assistant had been assigned to him to help the evening run smoothly.

But when Lockhart didn't skip a beat from one piece to the next, Ervin began a mental scramble to wonder what would be next.

In an email he wrote to Foster's Daily Democrat, he said, “I stood in the wing calmly awaiting for the moment of my life.”

He said Lockhart's antics and relaxed method of handling the goof — conducting “Sleigh Ride” himself put him at ease.

“As Keith approached, he looked at me with a sudden panicked expression, but he never slowed for a single step, circling past me and around the percussion section just in time to crack the whip in perfect cue to the music.” Ervin described. “He then bolted past me back to the podium. As he continued to conduct he gave me an eye-twinkling glance, as if to say, 'I've got it all figured out ...' I took another breath and relaxed again.”

Within moments, he was standing before the group of musicians — and Lockhardt himself — about to conduct the same song in his own way.

“As the song began, I remembered some of the more adventurous versions I had listened to in my research, and decided to follow their lead,” he said.

He said he was unsure at first whether the group would follow his lead, but with a confident smile from a flautist, his doubts disappeared.

“There's always this pull and take,” he said between conductors and the musicians who make up the band.

“You never really know what kind of control you're going to have,” he said. “Orchestras are infamous for not agreeing with the conductor.”

Ervin said he was perfectly happy to just go stand in front of them.

But the musicians respected the man before them and his knowledge. In that moment, he knew he had made allies with the performers who would play to his direction.

“When I looked up to cue the percussion, whose eyes did I meet but Keith's, and he snapped his whip as a cloud of confetti rained down upon him. Twelve measures before the jazzy chorus of the song I made my move, speeding the song up with a molto stringendo, pushing the tempo measure by measure,” he described via email.

Beyond the emotional and mental thrill of being conductor of the Boston Pops, Ervin said the auditory experience when surrounded by a live orchestra “is just remarkable.”

“To be right in the middle of the music when it's happening is surprisingly thrilling,” he said.

At ORMS, the 116 seventh- and eighth-grade students who make up his jazz band studio orchestra have a great time, he said, replicating music from a variety of periods in a very exact way.

Every morning at 7:20, before the first bell for class sounds, students meet with Ervin in the music room, the same place they meet for two hours each Sunday, and where many spend lunch breaks during the school day just practicing and playing music.

“It's a giant commitment,” he said.

Watching him lead, especially his latest stint as Boston Pops conductor, also inspires the students.